Do you study the marketing strategy of the team earnestly every year? you should. The annual marketing plan can help you to market on the right route to achieve the company’s business goals. Think of it as a high-level plan that guides team activities, goals, and development direction. Without one, things will get very messy-if there is no budget, it is almost impossible to allocate some numbers to a plan in the project, recruitment and outsourcing budget you need. Remember, the marketing plan you need will be different depending on your industry and the goals of your marketing team. In order to simplify the creation of the plan, we have compiled a list of the content to be included in the plan and some different plan templates, where you can easily fill in the blanks.
1. Conduct situation analysis.
Before you start to develop a marketing plan, you must understand the current situation. What are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats? Performing a basic SWOT analysis is the first step in formulating a marketing plan. In addition, you should also understand the current market. How do you compare to your competitors? Conducting a competitor analysis should help you complete this step. Consider how other products are better than yours. In addition, consider the gap in the competitor’s approach. What are they missing? What can you offer to gain a competitive advantage? Think of what makes you special. Answering such questions should help you figure out the needs of your customers, which brings us to the second step.
2. Define your target audience.
Once you have a better understanding of the market and company conditions, make sure you know who your target audience is. If your company already has a buyer role, this step may simply mean that you must optimize your current role. If you don’t have a buyer role, you should create one. For this, you may have to conduct market research. Your buyer persona should include demographic information such as age, gender, and income. However, it will also include psychological information such as pain points and goals. What drives your audience? What problems can your product or service solve? After writing down this information, it will help you define your goals, which brings us to the third step.
3. Write SMART goals.
My mother always tells me: “You can’t go anywhere unless there is a road map.” Now, for me, a person who is geographically challenged, this is a literal suggestion. However, it can also be applied metaphorically to marketing. Unless you know your goals, you cannot increase your return on investment. After determining the current situation and understanding your audience, you can begin to define SMART goals. SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. This means that all your goals should be clear and include a time frame to be completed. For example, your goal might be to increase your Instagram followers by 15% in three months. Based on your overall marketing goals, this should be relevant and achievable. In addition, the goal is specific, measurable and time-bound. Before starting any tactics, you should write out the goals. Then you can begin to analyze which strategies can help you achieve that goal. This brings us to the fourth step.
4. Competitor analysis
Your buyer persona can have choices in solving their problems, choosing between the types of solutions they consider and the providers who can manage these solutions. In market research, you should consider your own competition, competitive advantages, and gaps that you may fill. This can include: Targeting market share Dedication price.
5. SWOT analysis
The business summary of your marketing plan also includes a SWOT analysis, representing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the business. Be patient with the company’s SWOT analysis; you will write most of the content based on the market research in the above sections and the strategies below.
6. Market strategy
Your marketing strategy uses the information contained in the above sections to describe how your company should enter the market. What will your business provide to your buyers, and your competitors have not yet provided them? In a complete marketing plan, this section can contain “seven marketing points”: product price local Promotion people process Physical evidence (You will learn more about these seven sub-components in our free marketing plan template, which you can download from below.)
